


Moonlight

by NervousAsexual



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Episode: s03e16 Whom Gods Destroy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 15:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20603147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: By rights Marta should have died on Elba II. If the explosive in her necklace had not killed her, the poisonous atmosphere surely would have. But Marta is not as easily fooled as Garth wants to believe.





	Moonlight

_She was wearing the coral taffeta trousers_

_Someone had brought her from Ispahan,_

_And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms,_

_And the coral-hafted feather fan;_

_But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight,_

_And skipped in the pool of the moon as she ran._

_She cared not a rap for all the big planets,_

_For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran,_

_And all the big planets cared nothing for her,_

_That small impertinent charlatan;_

_But she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight,_

_And laugh at the sky through the sticks of her fan._

Marta had written that poem several weeks ago now; it looked lovely in the dancing Orion script. Garth had thrown a tantrum over it, saying that she couldn't have written it because it was an Earth poem, but he could not name the supposed "true" poet and Marta showed him the poem on her cell wall and the discussion was ended.

Now beneath the asylum, tucked away in a hole in the foundation, Marta breathed with her mouth pressed to the dented ventilation shaft and laughed at the sky. Garth had always bragged about his intelligence. Where was that intelligence now? What had it got him? He couldn't even kill a lone Orion woman on a planet built entirely out of things that would kill her.

What a stupid, foolish man.

He'd thought himself quite clever with that little necklace of his. "Consort." Please! As if she'd expect anything out of him! Granted, she hadn't necessarily expected it to be made of explosives at first, but he could not have telegraphed it any harder if he tried. And then he thought that a wall could keep her out after this gift. He really did think she was some kind of idiot. How hard was it to take off a necklace and jam it into the cracked foundation of the asylum? Under the cover of that toxic atmosphere she could have been doing anything.

In the room above her she could hear people moving around. "Cured," someone said, and someone else responded, "Never thought I'd see the day."

They were quite stupid too. Marta put all her weight against the vent and tore part of it free. She wriggled into the vent easily--a fully grown Klingon could move through them unimpeded.

There was an idea, she thought as she made her way through the ventilation shaft. Klingons. Perhaps she'd find her way to Qo'noS after she'd freed herself from this sad little asylum. After all, in the Federation's eyes she was deceased. Why shouldn't she push through the demilitarized zone and find some strong handsome Klingon to love? There was such diversity among them--in gender, in appearance, in personality--surely she'd find someone to replace poor uninterested James Kirk. She'd heard somewhere that on Klingon males were expected to woo females, instead of the other way around. It would be an interesting change from the expectations of humans.

She wound her way through the inner workings of the asylum until she found her way to the manual evacuation chambers. Bracing her heel against the vent cover and her shoulder to the wall, she opened the way into the room easily and silently.

Garth was "cured," was he? Funny. He'd never struck her as the curable type. He wasn't really insane, after all--merely guileful. So far as contingencies went, it was rather clever. He had ever chance of taking control of the Enterprise, conquering galaxies, taking control of the universe itself, and yet if he failed the Federation would see only a wildly insane man, ready for a cure. They would never know there was nothing there to cure.

The Elba II asylum had four escape pods--three designed to carry inmates and a fourth to carry the staff. She configured each one, programming it to go to a pre-specified destination, galaxies apart.

She still felt a little guilty. After all, she knew Garth was pretending and no one else did, so what stood between him and another revolt? Very little.

Why not, she thought to herself. From the central computer she recorded a time-delayed message and sent it on its way to Kirk. "You should know that Garth is not as insane as he appears," she said. "He is quite sane. He's making fools of you all, you know. Everyone in this galaxy would be better off if he were in a prison instead of an asylum." As an afterthought she blew a little kiss to the camera. Scheme or no scheme, that chubby little idealistic starship captain was pretty cute.

It didn't matter, of course. She knew that no matter what she said Kirk would always see the best in Garth and everyone else as well. He was so optimistic, to think that people could change. It was adorable.

"Move him into the sun--gently its touch awoke him once," Marta said to herself. Yes, that was the poem she would write next. She climbed into the third escape pod. It was no starship, but it would have to do.


End file.
